Closing Quotes from Dallas CEOs

Memorable comments Culled from CEO Spotlight, a weekday program on KRLD-AM (1080) featuring interviews by business analyst David Johnson

From D CEO March-April 2010Tanya Foster illustration by Chris Pyle

“We’ve done three years with AFI, and now we’re going to take the training wheels off and ride the bike by ourselves, so to speak. We feel like we’re trained and ready to go.”Tanya Foster, president and CEO, Dallas Film Society, on the transition from AFI Dallas to the Dallas International Film Festival.

“I think the government, frankly, isn’t doing a very good job. We have got to move toward a security system which focuses on the people, not on things. That means we’ve got to do profiling. … We’ve got to move toward the mindset where we make it easier for most people to travel.”Robert Crandall, former chairman, president, and CEO, American Airlines, on airport security.

“We’re still waking up every morning trying to figure out how we can be a great place to work. We don’t even put the customer first; we put the employee first, and then they take care of the customer better than anybody else. And if those two folks are happy, then I think your shareholder is going to be real happy, too.”Kip Tindell, co-founder, chairman, and CEO, The Container Store, on why the company has made Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For list 11 years in a row.

“We actually hold our advertisers accountable to make sure they get the job done right. When we come to them with a problem that a consumer has raised, they’re usually very anxious to step in and get it fixed. But if they don’t, we do not allow them to continue to advertise in our products.”Scott W. Klein, CEO, Dallas-based SuperMedia Inc., formerly Idearc/Verizon Yellow Pages, on the company’s “super guarantee.”

“We saw some very good and encouraging signs in the fourth quarter. We continued to see strong deposit growth, and a slower pace of decline in loan demand, which is very important because that tends to signal a more positive environment in our customer base.”Ralph W. Babb Jr., chairman, president, and CEO, Comerica Bank, on the company’s improvements.

“What we’re seeing now—they’re calling it ‘essential travel’—is now authorized. And essential travel basically turns out to be, for corporate America, get out and see your customers.”Dave Johnson, president and CEO, Carrollton-based Aimbridge Hospitality, on growth in the hospitality industry.